You are in fact familiar with how they are picked and what their duties are? And how Obama performed in that capacity and what he actually did?
Or is it just an assumption that it “must” be so that a person must have been a proven top runner-of-things to be named to that position, and must have accomplished such once in the position?
[quote]Rape Weight wrote:
ProwlCat wrote:
We have a man in the White House who has never run ANYTHING in his life.
Being President of the Harvard Law Review surely counts for something.[/quote]
It counts for experience in running a student run journal. Not exactly a prerequisite to leadership of the free world.
IIRC Beowulf, when you arrived you were staunchly against the GOP. You mentioned frequently the inadequacy of GWB, and while I might have you mixed up for someone else, I think you were really into the 9/11 conspiracy theories too.
What happened to you to cause your opinion to change?
[quote]Otep wrote:
IIRC Beowulf, when you arrived you were staunchly against the GOP. You mentioned frequently the inadequacy of GWB, and while I might have you mixed up for someone else, I think you were really into the 9/11 conspiracy theories too.
What happened to you to cause your opinion to change?[/quote]
I realized, slowly, that everything I was “for” was not what Democrats believed. I still think Bush was a horrible President, but I found my liberalism was nothing more than hating Bush.
What I hated about Bush other than Iraq, namely: wiretapping, over spending, expanding the power of government,was primarily where he fell AWAY from Conservativism. Until I actually started looking at the parties foundations I thought they were reversed!
…Er… I was never into 9/11 conspiracies. EVER. So you’re confusing me with someone else there.
I still dislike the current Republican party as well. But they’re closes to what I want than the Democrats currently are.
Isn’t Cornell still a relatively conservative campus?
You don’t know ignorant, left wing, knee-jerk idiocy until you’ve gone to a UC.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Otep wrote:
IIRC Beowulf, when you arrived you were staunchly against the GOP. You mentioned frequently the inadequacy of GWB, and while I might have you mixed up for someone else, I think you were really into the 9/11 conspiracy theories too.
What happened to you to cause your opinion to change?
I realized, slowly, that everything I was “for” was not what Democrats believed. I still think Bush was a horrible President, but I found my liberalism was nothing more than hating Bush.
What I hated about Bush other than Iraq, namely: wiretapping, over spending, expanding the power of government,was primarily where he fell AWAY from Conservativism. Until I actually started looking at the parties foundations I thought they were reversed!
…Er… I was never into 9/11 conspiracies. EVER. So you’re confusing me with someone else there.
I still dislike the current Republican party as well. But they’re closes to what I want than the Democrats currently are.[/quote]
You and I are almost alike; I hate all those things about George Bush, I still dislike the GOP, and I am not real happy with the Dems. Either. The only difference is now the GOP feels that to be a true conservative you must loath the poor. Cut off welfare; screw them with low unemployment or a shortened version of unemployment. That is just a short list of the GOP screwing the poor.
When if you really want to conserve you could stop all the wars that are not necessary. You could cut out all the contractors that can do the job and still make a profit. If you hire competent people the profit the Corps are making are over payment of our taxes.
[quote]johnconkle wrote:
Isn’t Cornell still a relatively conservative campus?
You don’t know ignorant, left wing, knee-jerk idiocy until you’ve gone to a UC.[/quote]
Haha. Not even close. Their are a few closetn conservatives but the campus is still 90% left wing. We have around 4 left-wing to socialist papers, multiple socialist clubs, and the few “unbiased” news sources are left wing as hell.
The Conservative paper is almost never read, people often protest the most random and retarded shit I can think of (People think being Gay is abnormal, therefore we will do a bunch of gay PDA in the middle of the Quad… lolwat?).
But yeah, I’m sure UC’s would be worse. At least there’s a small libertarian club here.
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
Otep wrote:
IIRC Beowulf, when you arrived you were staunchly against the GOP. You mentioned frequently the inadequacy of GWB, and while I might have you mixed up for someone else, I think you were really into the 9/11 conspiracy theories too.
What happened to you to cause your opinion to change?
I realized, slowly, that everything I was “for” was not what Democrats believed. I still think Bush was a horrible President, but I found my liberalism was nothing more than hating Bush.
What I hated about Bush other than Iraq, namely: wiretapping, over spending, expanding the power of government,was primarily where he fell AWAY from Conservativism. Until I actually started looking at the parties foundations I thought they were reversed!
…Er… I was never into 9/11 conspiracies. EVER. So you’re confusing me with someone else there.
I still dislike the current Republican party as well. But they’re closes to what I want than the Democrats currently are.
You and I are almost alike; I hate all those things about George Bush, I still dislike the GOP, and I am not real happy with the Dems. Either. The only difference is now the GOP feels that to be a true conservative you must loath the poor. Cut off welfare; screw them with low unemployment or a shortened version of unemployment. That is just a short list of the GOP screwing the poor.
When if you really want to conserve you could stop all the wars that are not necessary. You could cut out all the contractors that can do the job and still make a profit. If you hire competent people the profit the Corps are making are over payment of our taxes.
[/quote]
Why is cutting off federal welfare “screwing the poor?”
If you want to help the poor, no one is stopping you. The best way to do that is to be successful, so you can give them all a job.
And as for you last sentence… could you restate that? I’m completely missing the meaning.
I think what you need to do is to draw from your personal experience. I mean, in the grand sense, there isn’t anything you can do to help Conservatism draw away from the religious right or the Bush guilt by association.
All you can do where you are, with what you have, is to draw from your personal experience in the transition you made yourself. The things that made you reconsider will doubtless resonate with at least a couple other human beings.
People often misconstrue my devil’s advocate playing and my A.B.B.er hate for Bush support around here (in life, not the PWI forum). Truth is, I just can’t stand rabid, irrational hate on the level that I see it, and so I am compelled to fight it even though it makes me look bad. On the other hand, if someone can articulate a cogent rationale behind their hatred, I usually just let it stand.
It’s the difference between what you mentioned (irrational hatred of something leading to rejection of anything even remotely espoused by that one side) vs. hatred of something because you believe it to be irrational to support. I hate a lot of things, but it’s always rationally driven, if not always so serenely phrased. Nothing wrong with standing for something, even if I violently disagree…as long as you’re not an idiot :).
So to close my rambly post, draw from your personal experience and try to make clear your distaste where common ground will open a dialogue (ie–you both don’t like “X”). Disarm them if possible.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
johnconkle wrote:
Isn’t Cornell still a relatively conservative campus?
You don’t know ignorant, left wing, knee-jerk idiocy until you’ve gone to a UC.
Haha. Not even close. Their are a few closetn conservatives but the campus is still 90% left wing. We have around 4 left-wing to socialist papers, multiple socialist clubs, and the few “unbiased” news sources are left wing as hell.
The Conservative paper is almost never read, people often protest the most random and retarded shit I can think of (People think being Gay is abnormal, therefore we will do a bunch of gay PDA in the middle of the Quad… lolwat?).
But yeah, I’m sure UC’s would be worse. At least there’s a small libertarian club here.[/quote]
Did you just write that they publicly make out with dudes because someone somewhere thinks being gay is unnatural?
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
How can it be done? My generation in enamored by the Democrats, mainly because they all hate Bush.
[/quote]
Tell them to read this.
In Mandeville’s infamous “Fable of the Bees,” that witty writer makes the case that private vices generate public virtues. Specifically, he argues that the craving for gain, advancement, and luxury drives men to economic activity and fruitful cooperation–which, channeled and organized by the Market, ends by advancing society and enriching the Common Good. Conversely, one could count on general impoverishment if society were made up of ascetical, world-denying mystics, or even humble Christians content with simple lives in this world, since their eyes are fixed on the next. In other words, “Greed is good.”
Now, less cynical advocates of the market economy (such as Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments) tried to file off the sharper edges of Mandeville’s theory, noting that honesty, fair-dealing, professional integrity, and a whole host of non-market values were in fact essential to make a market economy viable. Smith was proved right by every financial bubble and politically-sponsored scam from the Tulip Bubble to Boris Yeltsin’s Russia and Bernie Madoff’s America.
In our own time, historians such as Christopher Dawson pointed out that it was, in fact, world-denying ascetics in the persons of Benedictine monks who served as educators, agricultural innovators, and magnets of order around which thriving communities gathered. Max Weber showed that the rise of capitalist prosperity depended on the thoroughly theological priorities of tight-fisted Calvinist businessmen, who produced without consuming–the better to serve their earthly vocations as stewards.
One of the clearest-eyed advocates of a free market economy, Wilhelm Röpke, took Smith’s insights even further: Looking at the social and moral decay caused by the economic effects of the Industrial Revolution–its uprooting of millions from rural communities, displacement of traditional craftsmen, and concentration of huge populations into tiny, unliveable quarters in squalid conditions–Röpke worried that an untrammeled market might well destroy the very social capital that Smith had argued it needed to function. Even worse, a culture that fawned over the most successful practitioners of self-promotion and ruthless competition would tend to promote corruption, protectionism, political patronage, and a whole host of other evils that harnessed the power of the State to the self-interest of the wealthy. In reaction, the masses–cut off from their traditional modes of organization in village and church–would turn for protection to socialism, Communism, or rabid nationalism. Such movements, if they succeeded, would only make matters worse by concentrating wealth in still fewer and less accountable hands, namely those of bureaucrats. Hence, the resistance to moderate regulation of business intended to preserve transparency and fairness would lead ineluctably to the political control of ever more national wealth, and the shrinkage of the private sector. The more wealth that’s in the hands of the State, the less freedom each citizen has–since an ever higher percentage of his wealth (and hence, his time) is controlled by the government. Thus Röpke predicted, in the early 1940s, the economic history of the next 60 years.
I’ve already written here about the decline of thrift–the economic face of the governing virtue of Prudence. The State helped drive this degeneration by embracing Keynesian economics, which can be boiled down to this theory: That instead of looking for investment capital to the accumulated savings of the populace (deferred consumption), clever government policies (i.e., magic) can make it possible to fuel investment without any savings. Instead of deferring consumption, we can simply defer the payment. The money you and I put on our credit cards to shop at Best Buy will help the store expand. Multiply this event a few million times, and the whole economy grows–allowing us to make enough money to pay off our credit cards…eventually. Any glitches that foul up the Rube Goldberg mechanism can be fixed by government loans, bailouts, or debt guarantees. Assuming an infinitely growing economy–never slowed down by the absence of capital, since the government can always print more money–the pyramid never has to crumble.
Except that it did. I remember reading last year some economist observing with wonderment that America could go right on increasing its consumption and standard of living, even as it produced ever fewer tangible goods. (Think of the old joke that you can’t make a country rich simply by getting everyone to hire his neighbor to do his laundry.) What, exactly, did America do to justify its prosperous place in the world–what value did we add? Here was the clincher: We offered a “safe place to invest,” and “extraordinarily sophisticated financial instruments” that maximized wealth. Instruments like…those derivatives that split up the debt on risky mortgages into so many different tiny slices that nobody, at any point in the process, had any interest in saying “No” to an unemployed Mexican grape-picker buying a $750,000 home.
Put bluntly, we closed down our country’s physical plant and turned the place into a casino. We skimmed a lot off the top, but we offered the best games in town. Our waitresses were hotter, the watered drinks were free, our security guards had nukes, and the floor show featured Siegfried and Roy. We tried to pursue prosperity by catering to the instant gratification of every conceivable human desire–and when we ran out of those, we got very good at coming up with new ones.
In 1980, who knew that we needed Twitter at the beach? Bariatric surgery? Transgender dorms at ex-Methodist colleges that charge $40,000 a year to teach women’s studies? We didn?t just feed the vices, we came up with new ones–and found ways to make them “pay.” Of course, the people who?ll really pay for our spending spree will be our grandchildren, who’ll inherit the brain-bleeding debt we’ve run up, which both political parties are eagerly expanding as you read this. Isn’t it funny how the guy who invented this system, John Maynard Keynes, was gay? In those days before “domestic partners” could adopt, he was…immune to fears about grandchildren, and quipped once, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” Just the man to plan for our heritage. When the tight-fisted, hard-working Confucians who take receivership of Americasino come in to assess the property, sweep up the pizza boxes, discarded condoms, and popper bottles, they will shake their brainy heads and wonder: “Why did we ever give these people gunpowder in the first place”
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_fable_of_the_drones/
18 year old REAL republican here brother limited government, Low taxes, and get the hell out of foreign places we do not belong. But you are right about 80% of my graduating class has to be far left liberals. The sad part is most people do not even know what it is that they are supporting.
You Hear obama obama obama, Go democrats go but nothing about actual issues. I think the real influencing force that causes so many young people to become liberal is that celebrities, the media, and popular culture in general tries to convince people its “cool” to be a hardcore democrat. Just my opinion though
[quote]orion wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
johnconkle wrote:
Isn’t Cornell still a relatively conservative campus?
You don’t know ignorant, left wing, knee-jerk idiocy until you’ve gone to a UC.
Haha. Not even close. Their are a few closetn conservatives but the campus is still 90% left wing. We have around 4 left-wing to socialist papers, multiple socialist clubs, and the few “unbiased” news sources are left wing as hell.
The Conservative paper is almost never read, people often protest the most random and retarded shit I can think of (People think being Gay is abnormal, therefore we will do a bunch of gay PDA in the middle of the Quad… lolwat?).
But yeah, I’m sure UC’s would be worse. At least there’s a small libertarian club here.
Did you just write that they publicly make out with dudes because someone somewhere thinks being gay is unnatural?[/quote]
Yes. Yes I did. They called it a “fight against heteronormalism.”
I’m not fucking with you.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
They called it a “fight against heteronormalism.”
I’m not fucking with you.
[/quote]
Is being against “heteronormalism” the same thing then as being for “homoabnormalism” ? Are both expressions equally politically correct?
Enquiring minds want to know.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
How can it be done? My generation in enamored by the Democrats, mainly because they all hate Bush.
Seriously, no one will even pick up the conservative paper on my campus, even though it is HARDLY a radical Bush loving journal. In fact, I’d say the Progressive (the left wing paper) is FAR more divided and often, just plain retarded. They recently ran an article about how meat is killing America. In a political newspaper. I can’t make this shit up.
I’ve considered writing for the Review (right wing paper) but I feel that no one will bother reading it. Hell, the Review almost got its named changed and funding cut because it used the words “ethnic ghettos” to describe a few of the program houses (Latino living center, African living center etc).
I think the first thing that has to go is the view that right wing is synonymous with racism and bigotry. It’s hard though, to explain that to people who are so conditioned to think that if you don’t want to give the poor free money, you MUST hate black people.
It’s driving me mad! I can’t talk to people without them assuming I’m some kind of bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass.
Anyone have any ideas?[/quote]
Its funny everyone im associated(friend etc.) with are all Republicans and Im still young. I guess its where you grow up and the circles you run in.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
They called it a “fight against heteronormalism.”
I’m not fucking with you.
Is being against “heteronormalism” the same thing then as being for “homoabnormalism” ? Are both expressions equally politically correct?
Enquiring minds want to know.[/quote]
I’ve no idea. They were protesting Valentine’s day and how it glorifies heteronormalism. You can’t make this shit up.
Apparently people giving them dirty looks were all horrible homophobes, not just annoyed at the PDA. <_<
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
How can it be done? My generation in enamored by the Democrats, mainly because they all hate Bush.
Seriously, no one will even pick up the conservative paper on my campus, even though it is HARDLY a radical Bush loving journal. In fact, I’d say the Progressive (the left wing paper) is FAR more divided and often, just plain retarded. They recently ran an article about how meat is killing America. In a political newspaper. I can’t make this shit up.
I’ve considered writing for the Review (right wing paper) but I feel that no one will bother reading it. Hell, the Review almost got its named changed and funding cut because it used the words “ethnic ghettos” to describe a few of the program houses (Latino living center, African living center etc).
I think the first thing that has to go is the view that right wing is synonymous with racism and bigotry. It’s hard though, to explain that to people who are so conditioned to think that if you don’t want to give the poor free money, you MUST hate black people.
It’s driving me mad! I can’t talk to people without them assuming I’m some kind of bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass.
Anyone have any ideas?[/quote]
As others have mentioned, I don’t know that GOP=Conservative now…
But to your larger point, you should BE the conservative you want to bring youth to. Some ideas:
-When a member of the GOP copies and distributes “Barack the magic negro” scoff and tell others about why “that’s not conservative.”
-Go ahead and write some QUALITY pieces in that paper. If you write shit, no one will read it or care. Maybe write some “letters to the editor” in the other, more well-read papers to build some popularity.
-Don’t be a [quote]bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass.[/quote]. Let your actions speak for themselves. Perhaps you could write some articles about the “conservative” position on these issues as you see them.
-I’m friends with a lot of conservatives… and those folks hate and scoff at the [quote]bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass[/quote]es. Just as the liberals I hang out with roll their eyes and the anti-globalization types. Perhaps you could express your disdain for the radicals.
-IMO as long as the Sarah Pailin’s of the world keep given the VP nod instead of the Ron Paul types, the GOP is doomed. Perhaps you should advocate for the libertarian wing of your party?
-Don’t hate “the other side” or think “the other side is evil!!” These type of extremist thoughts won’t change anyone’s mind.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
They called it a “fight against heteronormalism.”
I’m not fucking with you.
Is being against “heteronormalism” the same thing then as being for “homoabnormalism” ? Are both expressions equally politically correct?
Enquiring minds want to know.
I’ve no idea. They were protesting Valentine’s day and how it glorifies heteronormalism. You can’t make this shit up.
Apparently people giving them dirty looks were all horrible homophobes, not just annoyed at the PDA. <_<[/quote]
American young men have been emasculated. There’s no saving Conservatism. Americircus will eventually run itself down.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Otep wrote:
IIRC Beowulf, when you arrived you were staunchly against the GOP. You mentioned frequently the inadequacy of GWB, and while I might have you mixed up for someone else, I think you were really into the 9/11 conspiracy theories too.
What happened to you to cause your opinion to change?
I realized, slowly, that everything I was “for” was not what Democrats believed. I still think Bush was a horrible President, but I found my liberalism was nothing more than hating Bush.
What I hated about Bush other than Iraq, namely: wiretapping, over spending, expanding the power of government,was primarily where he fell AWAY from Conservativism. Until I actually started looking at the parties foundations I thought they were reversed!
…Er… I was never into 9/11 conspiracies. EVER. So you’re confusing me with someone else there.
I still dislike the current Republican party as well. But they’re closes to what I want than the Democrats currently are.[/quote]
You are way ahead of the curve now. I’m definately proud to see this type of thinking happening with our youth, rather than the norm of late.
You see, Professors and students largely don’t live in the true “real world” until they have to both hold a job as well as deal with living in society and paying taxes. Students can hide from both for a while, while a professor can hide from the real world and society for their whole working life.
I did not move right until I was graduated, had a job and a few years of full time employment to realize that my ideals were on the right. Something happens to a lot of us once we have to start paying the bills and have kids.
Don’t get me wrong…In college I had glorious thoughts of spiking trees to slow the lumber industry down from their evil rape of our forests…
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
How can it be done? My generation in enamored by the Democrats, mainly because they all hate Bush.
Seriously, no one will even pick up the conservative paper on my campus, even though it is HARDLY a radical Bush loving journal. In fact, I’d say the Progressive (the left wing paper) is FAR more divided and often, just plain retarded. They recently ran an article about how meat is killing America. In a political newspaper. I can’t make this shit up.
I’ve considered writing for the Review (right wing paper) but I feel that no one will bother reading it. Hell, the Review almost got its named changed and funding cut because it used the words “ethnic ghettos” to describe a few of the program houses (Latino living center, African living center etc).
I think the first thing that has to go is the view that right wing is synonymous with racism and bigotry. It’s hard though, to explain that to people who are so conditioned to think that if you don’t want to give the poor free money, you MUST hate black people.
It’s driving me mad! I can’t talk to people without them assuming I’m some kind of bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass.
Anyone have any ideas?
As others have mentioned, I don’t know that GOP=Conservative now…
But to your larger point, you should BE the conservative you want to bring youth to. Some ideas:
-When a member of the GOP copies and distributes “Barack the magic negro” scoff and tell others about why “that’s not conservative.”
-Go ahead and write some QUALITY pieces in that paper. If you write shit, no one will read it or care. Maybe write some “letters to the editor” in the other, more well-read papers to build some popularity.
-Don’t be a bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack ass… Let your actions speak for themselves. Perhaps you could write some articles about the “conservative” position on these issues as you see them.
-I’m friends with a lot of conservatives… and those folks hate and scoff at the bigoted, homophobic, poor hating, woman-hating jack asses. Just as the liberals I hang out with roll their eyes and the anti-globalization types. Perhaps you could express your disdain for the radicals.
-IMO as long as the Sarah Pailin’s of the world keep given the VP nod instead of the Ron Paul types, the GOP is doomed. Perhaps you should advocate for the libertarian wing of your party?
-Don’t hate “the other side” or think “the other side is evil!!” These type of extremist thoughts won’t change anyone’s mind. [/quote]
Everything you just said is wrong. You must educate yourself on the truth. You have no idea about conservatism or independent thought. There is no way I will e a sheep beholden to mere slogans and rhetoric that is spewed by the left while they kill what this country stands for at record speed.
Your president wants to buddy up with the taliban…That speaks volumes. You should think the incredible stupidity of uttering those words. Any thinking person should be fucking stunned.